Upon completing the last week of her internship in the communications department at SWIFT, a large financial services company in Brussels, Katherine Stieren, a strategic communication student, reflects on her experiences during her time abroad.

“I would just like to say that this experience has proved to be everything I expected and more,” said Stieren. “I think studying abroad is one of the most eye-opening, invigorating and amazing experiences a young person could ever have.”

Stieren found adjusting to everyday life in a foreign country to be the most challenging part of living abroad.

“Every day can be challenging, yet invigorating at the same time,” said Stieren. “From the foods at the grocery store to everyone around you speaking a foreign language, nearly every aspect of your life is different from the one you've always known, and you adapt and learn so much very quickly.

Stieren credits her time abroad with expediting her learning.

“I often tell people who ask me about it that I think I have learned about myself and the world in [the last] four months what would normally take someone five years,” said Stieren.

Stieren spent her weekends traveling with friends to different cities including Athens, Dublin and Barcelona. She says she will most miss the constant excitement of traveling and exploring while living abroad.

“There was not a moment when we weren't busy,” said Stieren. “At times it was exhausting, but in such a great way.”

Stieren is spending the last week of her internship at SWIFT creating promotional items for an upcoming internal education event as well as spending time with her parents who are visiting.

As the semester nears it's close study abroad students are wrapping up their classes and finishing work at their internships. Though they are happy to return to Columbia many of them will miss their time abroad. Read some of their reflections on their experience below:

Ben Wagner, Brussels Program"At this point, I feel completely comfortable in going out on a story on my own (with a cameraman), setting up interviews and finishing the story without any help from a senior producer. That day at Parliament was incredibly validating because I literally built the story from the ground up, communicated with the Paris and Berlin offices about sending video and scripts and finished the story in a timely manner. It’s times like these where I really wish this internship when just a bit longer. But in the end, I feel like I’ve gotten everything I could out of this experience at Reuters. I never held back; I pushed as many boundaries as possible and I always came in looking to do even more than I had the day before. Sure, I definitely got knocked down a fair share of times and even made a fool out of myself in front of heads of state. But I think that’s really the only way you can truly learn what you’re capable of, and it’s certainly the only way you’re going to get better. So as a result of the whole process, I will leave Reuters and Brussels with absolutely no regrets or unanswered questions about journalism, and more importantly – about myself. Ultimately, I think that’s the best I could have asked for from my time here."

Emily Morris, London Program"I’m having a few mixed feelings about the end of the program, which is coming up in the imminent future. On one hand I feel as if I’ve come to the point when I’ve learned just about the most I can from my internship and I am ready to move on. On the other hand, it has been an incredible learning experience and it will feel strange to leave it. I’m hoping everything comes together well for our last issue, as my stories are more complex and involved than they have been before."

Sarah Sontag, magazine student, discusses her opportunities to hear several renowned speakers, including Bob Woodward, while studying in Paris at Sciences Po. For more of Sontag’s experiences, check out her blog here.

Bob Woodward at Sciences Po

The greatest thing about going to one of the most prestigious schools in France, (besides the name-dropping) is that influential and famous people want to hold talks and give speeches for you.

Sciences Po Paris has hosted a number of cool people on campus this semester including, Egemen Bagis, the current Turkish minister for EU affairs; Michelle Bachelet, the former Chilean president; and Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General.

Today, I grabbed hold of one of these opportunities, and went to see Bob Woodward, one of the Washington Post journalists who reported on Nixon’s Watergate scandal, speak on campus.

Woodward, introduced to us as the most famous investigative journalist in the world, sat up on the small auditorium stage in a black suit and baby blue tie. He looked nothing like Robert Redford, the actor who played him in the 1976 movie, “All the President’s Men.” But I’m sure he gets that a lot, so I will move on.

Woodward drifted into journalism, because he thought going to law school was “gutless.” He wrote four books on George W. Bush’s presidency, and his book on Barack Obama, “Obama’s Wars,” was published in 2010. He has also written books on Nixon’s resignation, the CIA, Bill Clinton, and secrets of the White House. Today, Woodward spoke a little about investigative journalism, a little about what he thinks of journalism today, and answered a few questions from students.

“Journalism is trying to find out what happened, a method of going at something, peeling an onion,” Woodward said. He stressed the importance of getting out of the newsroom, talking to people and observing. He said every story can get better when the reporter goes to the scene.

“Go check it, go see it, go feel it, to understand what’s going on,” he said. He revealed the perfect time of night to knock on a difficult someone’s front door in order to get an interview: 8:15 p.m. I suspect this was a joke, but to illustrate how it worked for him, Woodward told a story about when he was working on one of his Bush presidency books.

He knocked on a general’s front door at 8:15 p.m. The general opened the door, looked at him, and said, “are you still doing this?” (This was including one expletive that I won’t add). Without answering, Woodward stood in the doorway, I imagine maybe he held up his pen and notepad suggestively, and eventually got let in. Woodward’s point was, the way to get questions answered is to go after them.

“It’s harder that way, but it’s more fun,” he said. “I got a rush from it.”

Woodward thinks that information and the internet as related to journalism, blogs and citizen journalism, is “Darwinian,” in that the high quality work will survive.

“The first amendment works, this is going to sort itself out,” he said.

Woodward talked about his mistakes in reporting at the start of the Iraq war, when he said he didn’t dig as hard as he should have after receiving reports about weapons of mass destruction. Maybe this is why he spent so much of his time investigating and writing about Bush’s war with Iraq. He talked about his belief in journalism as a public good, and the greatness of journalism as a business (“you get to raise hell.”)

“Journalism by definition doesn’t deal with the boring,” Woodward said. ”It deals with excitement and relevance, getting at the center of what is going on in our lives.”

For me, Woodward represents a glorious era of journalism. He is the essence of investigative reporting, getting the dirt, the check on government and power that we learn about in journalism class, and the fame and romance that made us all want to be reporters in the first place.

Yes, journalism can have quite the superiority complex, but it can be kind of great sometimes.

MU Journalism students Caitlin Alexander and Emily Smoucha are doing big things while studying abroad in London. Alexander, who is interning with CBS, has been shooting stand-ups outside of Buckingham Palace and prepping for the royal wedding while Smoucha an intern with GreenWise, a resource for UK companies looking to decrease carbon consumption, was published in The Guardian (article here). Read what they have to say about their experiences in London below.

Caitlin Alexander This week, the reality that little time remains between now, the royal wedding, and my departure from London became all too apparent. CBS has hired several new interns in preparation of the network's descent on the bureau in the upcoming weeks. As my supervisor jokes, it seems I've risen in seniority. But to some extent, this seems true. Coworkers have phoned me to help out more often, presumably because they trust me and my work ethic by now. I was sent on a shoot this week to help a producer interview the owner of a bakery manufacturing specialty royal wedding biscuits. I feel as though CBS has helped me think on my feet, because I was able to contemplate gaps in my coworker's questions, and I was allowed to pose a question or two after the formal interview. I'm enjoying spending time and growing with my kind and talented coworkers, and I look forward to cherishing the time I have left with them. On top of the wedding to-dos, I've been watching the wires and working on my news package. I shot a standup outside of Buckingham Palace!

Emily SmouchaIt felt surprisingly good to return to work after spring break. I dove back into things and wrote several stories this week. One story that I wrote was about how the Carbon Trust has launched a new guide for SMEs on how to make their businesses profitable by going green. The market is estimated to be worth £112 billion in the UK, so it's important for businesses to get involved. I'm particularly proud of this story because The Guardian picked it up and published it on its website. Another story that I'm particularly proud of is the story I wrote about the International Energy Agency's Clean Energy Progress Report. I was able to speak with the report's author, and he gave me a better perspective on what the UK specifically should be doing to reduce its carbon emissions in light of the findings of the report rather than a general overview of what needs to be done globally as stated in the report. It was great to get this unique angle on the story. I also wrote stories about a new recycling scheme that makes recycling thin plastic packaging easier for consumers, growing biomass crops on unused agricultural land to help meet energy targets, a new Scottish research center for developing methods to ensure food security through sustainable farming methods, and additional government funding for tidal energy generation projects.

Strategic Communication Student Anna Smylie got hands-on experience this week hosting events for Johnson & Johnson and Samsung in Buenos Aires. Read a first hand account of her experiences in Argentina below and check out her blog Smylie Del Sur.

Much of my experience in the journalism school at MU was reaffirmed by our media excursion to Bariloche this past week. We were fortunate enough to follow a reporter for a regional news station, Canal Seis, on a day’s work. He negotiated with all of his interviewees to allow us to sit-in on live interviews. We saw the reporter question politicians, an ombudsman, a police chief and the head of a regional electric corporation.

Each interview revealed issues and progressive solutions occurring within Bariloche and Patagonia as a whole. Most interesting to me were the stories regarding a police scandal and their burnt building and the project regarding the villa renovation. Our group eventually returned to the broadcast station in order to see the stories aired on television during the 2 p.m. news segment.

The International Programs Office is holding a contest to seek out photos portraying students working in their internships abroad. The photos must contain images of Mizzou students working and the best photos will emphasize that the work is being done in an international setting. Photos may be staged as long as they represent actual work done.

The top five photos will be showcased on MU Journalism Abroad’s blog, Facebook and Twitter. The student with the winning photo will be awarded a $100 scholarship!

All photo submissions may be used in promotional materials by the MU School of Journalism and the International Programs Office.

Please submit your photos to gmj@missouri.edu by Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Include “Photo Contest” in the subject line of email submissions.

Planning to study abroad during the summer or fall terms? The deadlines for the following programs are fast-approaching:

Friday, April 8th:

o Summer New York Internship

o Fall Buenos Aires Internship

o Fall China Open Program

o Fall Denmark Exchange (Danish School of Journalism)

o Fall Hong Kong Internship Program (Hong Kong University)

o Fall Ireland Exchange (Dublin Institute of Technology)

o Fall London Internship (CAPA)

o Fall Scotland Exchange (Napier University)

o Fall Singapore Exchange (Nanyang Technological University)

o Fall Spain Exchange (Universidad de Navarra)

Applications may be dropped off to the International Programs’ office in 76 Gannett. Please be sure to sign up for an interview time when dropping off your application. For specific program information and application materials, please visit the International Programs website.